Starring Matt Damon, Jodie
Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Maura Wagner and William
Fichtner. Partly subtitled. 109 mins
It could just be me or the effects of a long and uninspired
summer, but now even the original films seem samey. Like Blomkamp’s breakthrough,
District 9, Elysium strikes out in new and bold directions only to then circle
back to familiar ground.
Having previous made a Sci-fi action film about apartheid in
which he cunningly reimagined and relocated it to, er, South Africa, I think it
is fair to say Blomkamp is a little tentative with his allegories. Nobody walks
out of one of films pondering what it was really about. That his futuristic fantasies
are grounded in current day realities is seen by many as a strength but it may be
just as much the case that he appeals to audiences who want to be politically
and socially engaged but only if there are guns and robots involved.
150 years in the future the third world is the whole world
and all the rich people are circling the earth, living in luxury on the circular
space station from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Here their safety is presided over by
Jodie Foster, who puts on a cut glass English accent for her villain role.
(Presumably Helen Mirren wasn’t available.) We don’t see much of life on
Elysium but it appears to be a sumptuous nightmare of braying posh folk. Down
among the riff raff Damon is an ex criminal desperate to make it off planet whose
attempt at one last heist ends up with him being chased down by psychotic
mercenary Kruger (Copley, initially unrecognisable in a Chuck Norris beard.)
The vision of a future Los Angeles as a giant rubble strewn
favela is a striking counterpart to the opening shots of the same city in Blade
Runner. This dystopia isn’t dark and rainy, it is dry and arid. Blomkamp has
some striking visual ideas and some of the action sequences are distinctive and
rousing but once it’s made its basic points about global inequality and
exploitation and co-opted some wikileaks imagery into his vision the story has
nothing much to offer beyond a po-faced reworking of elements of Escape From
New York. At least John Carpenter always knew that to pull off this kind of
thing you need to do it with a cheeky grin and a bit of sly irreverence.